Vulnerability Response Policy

Introduction

RSA strives to help our customers minimize risk associated with security vulnerabilities in our products. Our goal is to provide customers with timely information, guidance, and mitigation options to address vulnerabilities. The RSA Product Security Incident Response Team (RSA PSIRT) is chartered and responsible for coordinating the response and disclosure for all product vulnerabilities that are reported to RSA.

How to Report a Security Vulnerability

If you identify a security vulnerability in any RSA product, please report it to us immediately. Security researchers, industry groups, vendors, and other users that do not have access to Technical Support should send vulnerability reports directly to the RSA PSIRT via email. Timely identification of security vulnerabilities is critical to mitigating potential risks to our customers.

RSA’s product customers and partners should contact their respective Technical Support team to report any security issues discovered in RSA products. The Technical Support team, appropriate product team and the RSA PSIRT will work together to address the reported issue and provide customers with next steps.

When reporting a potential vulnerability, please include as much of the below information as possible to help us better understand the nature and scope of the reported issue:

• Product name and version containing the vulnerability
• Environment or system information under which the issue was reproduced (e.g. product model number, OS version, etc.)
• Type and/or class of vulnerability (XSS, buffer overflow, RCE, CWE, etc.)
• Step-by-step instructions to reproduce the vulnerability
• Proof-of-concept or exploit code
• Potential impact of the vulnerability

Handling Vulnerability Reports

RSA believes in maintaining a good relationship with security researchers, and with their agreement, may recognize the researcher for finding a valid product vulnerability and privately reporting the issue. In return, we ask that researchers give us an opportunity to remediate the vulnerability before disclosing it publicly. RSA believes that coordinating the public disclosure of a vulnerability is key to protecting our customers.

According to this policy, all disclosed information about vulnerabilities is intended to remain between RSA and the reporting party—if the information is not already public knowledge—until a remedy is available and disclosure activities are coordinated.

Vulnerability Remediation

After investigating and validating a reported vulnerability, we will attempt to develop and qualify the appropriate remedy for products under active support from RSA. A remedy may take one or more of the following forms:

• A new release of the affected product packaged by RSA;
• An RSA-provided patch that can be installed on top of the affected product;
• Instructions to download and install an update or patch from a third-party vendor that is required for mitigating the vulnerability;
• A corrective procedure or workaround published by RSA that instructs users on adjusting the product configuration to mitigate the vulnerability.

RSA makes every effort to provide the remedy or corrective action in the shortest commercially reasonable time. Response timelines depend on many factors, such as the severity, impact, the remedy complexity, the affected component (e.g., some updates require longer validation cycles or can only be updated in a major release), the stage of the product within its lifecycle, and status of business operations, among others.

Impact and Severity Ratings

RSA currently uses the Common Vulnerability Scoring System version 3.1 (CVSS v3.1) open framework for communicating the characteristics and severity of RSA’s software vulnerabilities.  Many factors, including the level of effort required to exploit a vulnerability as well as the potential impact to data or business activities from a successful exploit, are taken into consideration.

The overall impact of a security advisory is a textual representation of the severity (i.e., critical, high, medium, and low) that follows the CVSS Severity Qualitative Severity Rating Scale for the highest CVSS Base Score of all identified vulnerabilities. When and where applicable, RSA will provide an overall impact for the advisory and for each identified vulnerability the CVSS v3.1 Base Score and corresponding CVSS v3.1 Vector. RSA recommends that all customers take into account both the base score and any temporal and/or environmental metrics that may be relevant to their environment to assess their overall risk.

Remedy Communication

Usually, we communicate remedies to customers through RSA Security Advisories, where applicable. To protect our customers, RSA strives to release a Security Advisory once we have a remedy in place for any affected product(s). RSA may release Security Notices sooner to respond appropriately to public disclosures or widely known vulnerabilities in the components used within our products.

Security Advisories are intended to provide enough details to allow customers to assess the impact of vulnerabilities and to remedy potentially vulnerable products. Full details may be limited to reduce the likelihood that malicious users can take advantage of the information and exploit it to the detriment of our customers.

RSA Security Advisories will typically include the following information, as applicable:

• The overall impact, which is a textual representation of the severity (i.e. critical, high, medium, and low) that follows the CVSS Severity Qualitative Severity Rating Scale for the highest CVSS Base Score of all identified vulnerabilities;
• Products and versions affected;
• The CVSS Base Score and Vector for all identified vulnerabilities;
• Common Vulnerability Enumeration (CVE) identifier for all identified vulnerabilities so that the information for each unique vulnerability can be shared across various vulnerability management capabilities (e.g., tools like vulnerability scanners, repositories, and services);
• Brief description of the vulnerability and the potential impact if exploited;
• Remediation details with update/workaround information;
• Acknowledgment to the finder for reporting the vulnerability and working with RSA on a coordinated release, as applicable.

Additional Disclosure Information

RSA’s policy is not to provide information about the specifics of vulnerabilities beyond what is provided in the Security Advisory and related documentation, such as release notes, knowledgebase articles, FAQs, etc. We do not distribute exploit/proof of concept code for identified vulnerabilities. In accordance with industry practices, RSA does not share the findings from its internal security testing or other types of security activities with external entities.

Notifying RSA of other Security Issues

If you need to report any other security issue to RSA, please use the appropriate contacts listed below:

Customer Entitlements: Warranties, Support, and Maintenance

RSA customers’ entitlements regarding warranties and support and maintenance—including vulnerabilities in any RSA software product—are governed by the applicable agreement between RSA and the individual customer. The statements on this web page do not modify, enlarge, or otherwise amend any customer rights or create any additional warranties.

Disclaimer

All aspects of RSA’s Vulnerability Response Policy are subject to change without notice and on a case-by-case basis. Response is not guaranteed for any specific issue or class of issues. Your use of the information contained in this document or materials linked herein is at your own risk. RSA reserves the right to change or update this document in its sole discretion and without notice at any time.